The man behind James Bond's most famous car.

Mogul: David Brown

The man behind James Bond's most famous car.

Mogul: David Brown

Englishman David Brown was one of at least two tractor makers to launch internationally revered sports cars.

But while Ferruccio Lamborghini fitted his surname onto the bodywork of his tractors and cars, the man responsible for "David Brown" tractors didn't.

After he bought sports car company Aston Martin, he contented himself with putting his initials in model names such as the James Bond-anointed DB5.

Brown had inherited an engineering conglomerate started by his grandfather. It generated enough cashflow for Brown to work his way through a string of racing cars, racehorses, yachts, planes and wives.

He played polo and was Joint Master of the South Oxfordshire Hunt. Yet despite sounding like a wealthy tosser, he was not without ability.

In his early thirties he designed a heavy tractor that, by the standards of heavy tractors, became a best-seller during WW2.

Further cashed up, in late 1946 he paid £20,500 for what was a dormant sports car company, but one with a good name, and a stylish (though underpowered) prototype among its assets.

Brown later said he thought Aston "would be fun to have and play around with … That was a lot of money in those days and for it I got the prototype, a few rusty old machine tools and the services of the Atom's designer, Claude Hill, who was very good."

A year later he paid considerably more (£52,500) for Lagonda, mainly for its twin overhead cam six-cylinder engine, designed by W.O. Bentley.

Through the 1950s Brown oversaw a series of stylish and fast Astons. They gained widespread acclaim, if modest sales. The decade ended with outright victory for the marque at the Le Mans 24-Hour.

Brown enjoyed his ownership. He got to hobnob with famous drivers and celebs and had special cars built for his own needs and/or whims.

It's said he used his contacts to get the DB5 into the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. In story terms, it wasn't a stretch; in the novel Mi6 issued Bond with a gadget-filled version of the (excruciatingly named) DB 2/4 Mark III, then the current model.

Movie stardom raised the company's international profile, even if the net result was allowing it go from making a small number of cars at a loss to a much larger number (Brown supposedly told someone who wanted to buy an Aston at cost that that person couldn't possibly afford it and should pay the sticker price).

By the 1970s, with his engineering business caught in the British industrial malaise, Brown had to admit he could no longer afford his Aston adventure. After 25 years of ownership, he sold the haemorrhaging marque for a nominal £100. He died in Monaco in 1993.